Dead In The Moonlight
by Zydrate Anatomy
Summary: Songfic to Dead in the Water by Hawthorne Heights. Remus forgets to take his wolfsbane and, as per usual, it's not just him that suffers for it.


**The medicine**

**Is burning and**

**Mixing the blood**

**With oxygen**

My hand closed around the handle of the flask, the metal cold on my skin, and I pulled it up out of my bag, scattering the other contents uncaringly. Without a thought, I wrenched the lid away with one hand, and then brought the flask to my mouth. The potion burned as it slid sluggishly down my throat, like bleach, and I turned to Nessa.

"Water," I choked, a hand on my neck. She nodded, wide-eyed, and hurried into the kitchen to fetch it.

"Here Remus," She handed it to me, and as she did so, I noticed her hands were shaking a little.

I took a swig of cool water and swilled it around my mouth before swallowing it, to wash a little of that awful taste away. I took a deep breath, and held her hands in mine. "It's okay, Nessa. It's alright. I've done this before, a hundred times."

_It's not going to work tonight though, is it Moony?_

James' voice echoed in my brain, the voice of reason that I was loosing so quickly. He was right, of course; the wolfsbane potion would only work if I had taken it every night this week, and I hadn't. Stupid, stupid man! I was too preoccupied with Nessa and her pretty blonde hair to remember the one thing that could save me. What a fool.

**I need this right now**

**Figure it out somehow**

**Cutting through the ribbons of doubt**

_The moon, the moon, the moon._

I could feel it already, prickling my skin and raising the hairs on the back of my neck. The change was as unavoidable as the madness and bloodlust that followed close behind, and I was not strong enough to ward them off. I took the flask to my lips again and drank deeply, and this time I didn't wash down the taste. Nessa eyed me worriedly. She had every right to be afraid, I was a monster, and she had only known a month. Her fear was my fault; I shouldn't have thrown her in at the deep end like this. It wasn't fair on her, and it wasn't fair on the wolf.

**I never thought you'd see me this way**

**You are the worst, and I am to blame**

A long finger of pain scraped down my spine, and a yell escaped from my lips as I hunched over. Nessa put a hand on my back to comfort, but withdrew it when she felt the too-sharp points of my vertebrae through the thin material of my shirt. She took a step back involuntarily, watching me with those big worried eyes.

"Remus? Are you...?" She trailed off, because she knew she was asking a stupid question.

I straightened, painfully, and took a look around. I didn't really know the layout of her flat- only that it was small and packed close to others, but there really wasn't another option. "Do you have spare room with a lock, or a loft?"

"Um, well, uh..."She faltered, her eyes still round like saucers and shining like stars. "There's a kind of shared attic with next door, I guess..."

"Nothing shared- _no one_ must get in, Nessa!"

"Okay, um, there's... well, the bathroom has bolt-"

"Perfect! Show me, now!" My voice was getting hoarse and shouting. I wondered how long it would be before I lost it altogether.

She led me to a painted white door with an aluminium handle a slim bolt to slide shut on the inside. It would be a miracle if it held, but it would have to do.

**Close the door, lock it tight**

**Then I'll know you're safe tonight**

**Turn on a song that means the most**

**Believe I'm there, and hold me close**

"Stay in the bedroom, put things up against the door- whatever you can manage- and try not to think about it." I told Nessa, as calmly as I could manage with my teeth gritted. Her hands were clasped tight just in front of her navel, the nails digging into her soft flesh, and she was sweating. Not that I could have told by sight, but the smell was a dead give away with my senses on such a high.

Nessa nodded, her yellow hair bobbing up and down. Her eyes were tight shut- I suppose she was trying to ignore the horror that was all around her. What an awful boyfriend I must've been- I should have been protecting her from the monster, not the one she needed protecting from.

Another spasm of moonlight curled by back and I was left reeling and gasping for air. Those blue eye were so filled with fear, it should have been a crime to scare her this much.

_The moon the moon the moon_

"Remus? Is there anything I can do?" She took a step closer, a hand hovering indecisively in the air between us.

"Just put on some loud music and stop worrying about me- it will do you no good." I told her coarsely, through a mouthful of toothache from my growing teeth. Time was running out for this.

_THE MOON THE MOON THE MOON!_

A small hand gripped mine for a second, then released. "I love you," she whispered, then disappeared.

As soon as she was gone, I slammed the door shut and bolted it, praying that it would hold, and then began to undress, at first unbuttoning my shirt with shaking, painful fingers, the tearing at the fabric roughly as my hands gave way to claws. I fell back onto the toilet seat, and waited there for the wolf to take hold.

**She is in my blood stream, tonight she's draining me**

**The room is filled with reds and blues**

**I follow as she leads into the darkness**

**Drying out my veins**

**She's a ghost, a silhouette, calling out my name**

The clarity of my mind when transformed was so different now than how I remember my childhood transformations. Then, I had been allowed that sweet oblivion like death, but now I was perfectly and horribly aware, staring through the colour-distorted screen of the wolf's eyes like they were my own, utterly helpless to stop the devastation it created. At that moment, I could see the white of the door and the tiles, but everything else was blurred blood red in various shades. My body collided with it painfully head on, but the door held, barely. The wolf charged it again, harder, and to my horror a crack appeared in the wood of the jamb. The wolf backed up a little, and then propelled its massive, muscular body forward, and this time the door gave, the wooden jamb splintering irreparably. I could feel the wolf's sick sense of triumph as it prowled across the broken threshold, enjoying having new territory to explore.

Suddenly, its ears perked and it sniffed the air curiously at an old, familiar scent.

_No, please, leave her._ I begged vainly, in full knowledge that it would do no good. The wolf's excitement peaked, and it went straight to her bedroom door. The music blared in the wolf's hyper-sensitive ears, and it whined but the sound was not enough to deter it, just as I had feared. It started scratching the gap between door and floor with both sharp claws. There was a sound from within, the sharp intake of breath, and that sent the creature into a frenzy. I am glad I could not hear its thoughts; else the mad bloodlust might have driven me over that edge that I was teetering on.

It snarled hungrily through my inhuman lips, its prey so tantalisingly close that I'm sure it felt that it could almost taste Nessa's soft flesh. The hairs all over my lupine body bristled with anticipation and the remorseless wolf heart beat faster.

I could not see her, but I heard her panic break in a single screamed word: _"Remus!"_

**The nights will fall into the pieces I've left you **

**Of your favourite picture torn in two**

**I never thought we'd end up this way**

**You are the worst, I am to blame**

The smell of blood was all-encompassing. It covered the walls, the floor, the furniture, and I could taste it between my teeth and on my tongue. Tears had washed most of the crimson from my face, leaving long tracks of exposed pale flesh amongst the terrible splatters of blood. The rough plaster of the wall dug into my back as I leaned against it, and I pulled my knees in tighter to my body, wanting to die, to disappear. I closed my eyes, but that didn't help me not to see the horrible images of the night before for my mind. My breathing was ragged and strained in my chest as I avoided Nessa's sightless, dead gaze.

Her screams echoed through my brain, piercing every thought like a razor, and I wished that I could simply forget her entirely.

Forget it all.

**Close the door, lock it tight**

**Then I'll know you're safe tonight**

**Turn on a song that means the most**

**Believe I'm there, and hold me close**

I sat in my bedroom in the little flat alone, wedged between the bed and the wall with my head in my hands. It had been years since that night, but the memories still plagued me. I often wondered if I would ever be free of them- I'd done my time, surely that should be enough? If a year in Azkaban listening to those horrible screams was not punishment befitting to what I had done whilst I had had no control of myself, I have no idea what would be. Death would have been better than that, or at the least it would have been easier. Peaceful, even. God, how many times on those long nights did I wish for death, how many times did I beg for it?

But, just like always, my desires were ignored. After all, a werewolf should not have any use for desires. We are monsters, and I am a murderer.

**She is in my blood stream, tonight she's draining me**

**The room is filled with reds and blues**

**I follow as she leads in to the darkness**

**Trying, I'm in vain**

**She's a ghost, a silhouette, calling out my name**

Her memory still haunts me. Almost every day, I think I see her shape under the covers next to me when I wake, or lounging across the sofa watching television, or in the kitchen, standing over the hob cooking something or other and _smiling at me_. The smiling is the worst, as though she doesn't blame me at all, even though it's entirely my fault that she died. She smiles at me as if it's alright and none of it matters, but that's a lie. Of course it matters; hers is another life that has been wasted at the hands of the monster within me. Sometimes I wonder if it _is_ just the wolf that is the monster, or whether it's me as well- letting people get close, knowing that they'll only be hurt, must be truly monstrous. At least the wolf has an excuse- it's an animal, it can't be expected to know any better.

Sometimes I wonder if the world wouldn't be better off without Remus Lupin- what do I have to live for anyway? James is dead, Lily is dead, Peter is dead and Sirius betrayed them all. I can't get a job, and this is what happens when I try to have a relationship. What's the point? I expect I would be better off dead.


End file.
